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Wal-Mart off the school-supply list
Deborah Bach ^ | 3/11/05 | Deborah Bach

Posted on 03/11/2005 6:02:26 AM PST by traderrob6

More political extortion from the left: When it's time to pick up supplies for her third-grade classroom, Jennifer Strand would prefer to steer clear of Wal-Mart. [snip]


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: themostcorruptstate; unions; walmart; wea
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The teacher is convinced the retail giant isn't paying workers a fair wage, but in the northeastern Washington town of Colville -- population 5,000 -- the only other option is a small stationery section in the local grocery store. [snip]

Taking a bold political stand, the state teachers' union last week declared the fund off-limits to Wal-Mart purchases. [snip]

In a newsletter distributed to teachers, association President Charles Hasse cited Wal-Mart's "exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation." [snip]

These people are so myopic and naive, it's really hard to believe they were sharp enough to obtain a degree. Who do they think this is going to hurt anyway. In an ill concieved effort to hurt the company, they will, if anything, end up hurting the people they are trying to "protect". For the sake of our kids education, I hope none of them is teaching economics.

OpiniPundit

1 posted on 03/11/2005 6:02:27 AM PST by traderrob6
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To: traderrob6

Teaching economic? They don't even know how to spell it!


2 posted on 03/11/2005 6:06:53 AM PST by marlon
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To: traderrob6

The anti-Walmart sentiment is basically a union ploy.


3 posted on 03/11/2005 6:07:42 AM PST by w1andsodidwe (Jimmy Carter allowed radical Islam to get a foothold in Iran.)
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To: traderrob6

What supplies are they talking about? When I was in school the kids had to bring their own crayons, pencils, tissues, etc. The teacher's supplies came from a teacher supply store or a big educational supply house. What supplies are they buying at Wal-Mart?

So much stuff comes from China but last I checked, Wal-Mart isn't in charge of the Chinese workers. I know the libs are all for China, so what is the heartburn?


4 posted on 03/11/2005 6:08:25 AM PST by Vor Lady
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To: traderrob6

This teacher should love buying from Chairmain Mao's General Store. It funds her friends the Chicoms.


5 posted on 03/11/2005 6:08:37 AM PST by KC_Conspirator (This space outsourced to India)
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To: traderrob6

This should be as amusing, and have as much of an impact (which was NONE) on Wal-Mart's bottom line as the flakey libs "Not One D@mn Dime Day" of January 20th, to "boycott" the Inagural and plunge our country into economic wrack and ruin.

I'm so scared...please, someone hold me. *Rolleyes*


6 posted on 03/11/2005 6:11:05 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: traderrob6

-"exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation." [snip]-

Exchange "child" for "labor" and you've got the definition of modern public edoocashun.


7 posted on 03/11/2005 6:12:30 AM PST by AmericanChef
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To: traderrob6

If I can get this lady's contact information, I could sell her any supplies she wants. I'm sure I could be persuaded to overcharge her enough that I might even make $50,000. I wonder if that income would be sufficient to meet her "fair wage" requirement.


8 posted on 03/11/2005 6:12:51 AM PST by Sgt_Schultze
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To: traderrob6
It's obvious the unions are bullying/blackmailing Wal-Mart.

I agree, it's NOT FAIR that the college student cashier isn't making $25.00 an hour. /sarcasm
9 posted on 03/11/2005 6:13:31 AM PST by Redgirl
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To: traderrob6

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/215514_walmart11.html

Wal-Mart off the school-supply list
Union won't repay teachers for items bought at discounter

Friday, March 11, 2005

By DEBORAH BACH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

When it's time to pick up supplies for her third-grade classroom, Jennifer Strand would prefer to steer clear of Wal-Mart.

The teacher is convinced the retail giant isn't paying workers a fair wage, but in the northeastern Washington town of Colville -- population 5,000 -- the only other option is a small stationery section in the local grocery store.

So Strand became a reluctant Wal-Mart shopper -- venturing in from time to time to pick up supplies and emergency items for disadvantaged students, such as coats and shoes. She'd get reimbursed through the Washington Education Association's Children's Fund, a decade-old charity that provides up to $100 per student each year.

Not anymore.

Taking a bold political stand, the state teachers' union last week declared the fund off-limits to Wal-Mart purchases.

In a newsletter distributed to teachers, association President Charles Hasse cited Wal-Mart's "exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation."

Hasse said yesterday that the action followed repeated suggestions from teachers to either change the policy or distribute information about the company's labor practices.

Hasse said he's received more than 200 responses from teachers around the state, who were 20-1 in favor of eliminating Wal-Mart reimbursements. "It was interesting to see the intensity of feeling around this," he said.

Objections to the change stemmed primarily from concerns that teachers in rural areas would have no alternative to Wal-Mart.

In the absence of other shopping options, Hasse said, exemptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. "We're not going to have some student go without a coat if that's the only place it could be purchased."

The Children's Fund provides about $50,000 a year to teachers around the state, according to Hasse.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman yesterday refuted the unfair labor practice accusations. He said 86 percent of Wal-Mart hourly employees have medical insurance, and more than half of them are covered by the company. The company's average wage for hourly "sales associates" is $10.14 in Washington state, Fogleman said, compared with the national average of $9.68.

He said the company spent $40 million last fiscal year on educational initiatives, including scholarships, teacher awards and a national literacy hot line that connects callers with resources in their communities.

"We understand the value of an education, and we strongly support it," he said.

The association's new policy also was slammed by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative research organization in Olympia that frequently has clashed with the association.

The foundation, which has received funding from Wal-Mart, issued a press release this week accusing the education association of "allowing a political battle to trump its charitable intentions."

Michael Reitz, a legal analyst at the foundation, said the association's stand is ironic.

"On the one hand, the WEA claims that teachers are not being paid enough, but then they're forcing teachers to go to more expensive retailers, because Wal-Mart can be the best place to go for bargain shopping," he said.

"If the mission of the Children's Fund is to help children, then it shouldn't matter where the teachers are purchasing goods."

Richard Gilham agrees.

A fourth-grade teacher at Olympic Elementary School in Chehalis, Gilham has bought CD players, batteries and other classroom items at Wal-Mart. For selection and price, he said, Wal-Mart is hard to beat.

"If I'm spending WEA's resources, I'm going to try to get the best buy I can for my dollar, and if Wal-Mart is that place, it's probably the best use of those funds," Gilham said.

Roger Kinney, a marketing and business teacher at Burlington-Edison High School in Skagit County, said he's angry with the association for "dishing around in areas that they don't belong."

Kinney believes the association's opposition is a show of solidarity for other unions that have so far eluded certification at any Wal-Mart store.

"I think the unions know that Wal-Mart is a huge market for them, and there's a lot of money to be tapped from that market," he said.

Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest private-sector employer with 1.2 million workers, has been held up as the poster child of unethical labor practices. The company faces a grand jury investigation following raids in October 2003 that uncovered hundreds of illegal immigrants, employed by outside contractors, cleaning its stores.

Last June, a federal judge certified a class-action lawsuit, the largest workplace-bias lawsuit in U.S. history, alleging discrimination against female employees.

After meat cutters at a Texas store voted to form a union in 2000, the company shut down its meat-cutting operations nationwide, saying the move was unrelated to the vote. Last month, the company said it would close a store in Jonquiere, Quebec, that voted in August to unionize.

In an effort to stanch the public relations disaster, Wal-Mart in January held what company officials dubbed "Facts Day," launching with great fanfare a new Web site with information about the company and an advertising campaign extolling the benefits of working at Wal-Mart.

"We put our critics on notice that we were going to tell the truth, that we were going to set this misinformation campaign backward by bringing forth facts, the unfiltered truth about our company," Fogleman said.

Marlene Olveda remains unconvinced.

A Spanish teacher at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Olveda lauded the association's move and said she refuses to shop at Wal-Mart, as do many of her colleagues.

"One of my students has an 80-year-old grandmother who works there and has no benefits," she said. "There are so many other places we could be spending our money other than Wal-Mart. Granted, they have lower prices, but it's because they're predatory."


10 posted on 03/11/2005 6:14:59 AM PST by LRS
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To: traderrob6
. . . the only other option is a small stationery section in the local grocery store.

Wouldn't it be funny if the local grocery store bought its stationery wholesale from Wal-Mart?

11 posted on 03/11/2005 6:15:51 AM PST by Alberta's Child (I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine. I ain't rich, but lord I'm free.)
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To: traderrob6

This teacher's awful free with other people's money. Is she planning to pay the difference in cost that the parents would incur if they shopped at the other place?


12 posted on 03/11/2005 6:17:40 AM PST by mewzilla (Has CBS retracted the story yet?)
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To: Grannyx4
When my kids were in elementary school, they were given a list of what to buy. I had two kids & two lists, couldn't get out of Walmart or KMart for under $100.00!!! Ya know - crayons, pens, pencils, binders, rulers, paper, dividers, marble composition books, calculators, ect, ect, ect...

I always wondered why I was paying $6,000 a year in taxes (and that was 10 years ago, much more now!)

13 posted on 03/11/2005 6:18:22 AM PST by alice_in_bubbaland (We will always remember.We will always be proud.We will always be prepared, so we may always be free)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

LOL and I love your tag line....wish I would have thought of that!


14 posted on 03/11/2005 6:19:21 AM PST by Vor Lady
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To: w1andsodidwe

But it the anti walmart sentiment is growing.


15 posted on 03/11/2005 6:21:01 AM PST by TXBSAFH (Never underestimate the power of human stupidity--Robert Heinlein)
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To: traderrob6
Don't teachers have a fiduciary responsibility to wisely spend the funds in their control? Paying top dollar for commodity items (likely from the same supplier in many cases) sounds like an abrogation of responsibility to me. I wonder if the fund is exempt from state procurement rules? And the union is doing this? Can you spell RICO?
16 posted on 03/11/2005 6:21:08 AM PST by NonValueAdded (Strategerie works!)
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To: traderrob6
... the only other option is a small stationery section in the local grocery store.

Nonsense; you can order nearly anything on-line these days, probably at a better price tahn buying locally.

17 posted on 03/11/2005 6:22:08 AM PST by JimRed ("Hey, hey, Teddy K., how many girls did you drown today?")
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To: marlon
Teaching economic? They don't even know how to spell it!

Economics includes the reaction of a consumer base, and their decisions need not be based exclusively on price and availability. Walmart has nearly monopolized the discounted retail space, and reactions like this should be an expected and growing part of their calculus. As the largest private employer in the US, they have become the standard bearer for US employment, and therefore a legitimate political target. It is only a matter of time before they are confronted by organized labor. This is just a small salvo across their bows; what lies ahead may be much more substantial.

This is a taste of things to come: http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/stocks/retail/10208246.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
18 posted on 03/11/2005 6:23:19 AM PST by ARCADIA (Abuse of power comes as no surprise)
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To: traderrob6

Typical leftist tripe!

I'm so tired of this. Here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts we get requests every other week from the school for donations of supplies. It's a silent tax.

And every time the these people want more money for education they claim "it's for the kids". Well if it's for the kids how come the kids never see any of it?


19 posted on 03/11/2005 6:23:58 AM PST by EA_Man
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To: traderrob6

What should really disturb people is not that some of these "brilliant" teachers have diploma mill fake degrees, it should be that teacher training is so irrelevant that a teacher with a fake degree is ONLY caught when some accident exposed the school itself, not the individual teacher.


20 posted on 03/11/2005 6:24:25 AM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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